Author: Ariel Simmons

This is Ellory, my best friend.  We call each other sisters.  If you want to laugh, well then you’ll choose her as a friend.  She’s amazing.

Here we are reading books and playing with my pets.  She’s at my house for a playdate.  As she was leaving, we decided to do an experiment with Walkie Talkies.  The Walkie Talkies are actually pretty cool.  I can hear her all the way from her house which is 4 blocks away.  I had a day long conversation with her after she left.  Now we can keep in touch more often.  Who needs cellphones when you have Walkie Talkies, since my Mom won’t let me get a cellphone anyways.

I knew Ellory from school in first grade in Ms. Mack’s class.  Ms. Mack is great teacher.  I do homeschool now though for 2nd grade.  I haven’t played with Ellory since before London which was 4 months ago.  Here is a picture of me dropping off books for Ellory when she was sick.

There are street musicians here everywhere.  They call it busking.  If I like their music I give them some money.  We also give homeless people a coin.  The UK coins are in pounds, like the U.S. quarter, dime, nickel and penny.  There are a lot of types of UK coins.

Here is a one pound coin below.  If you have one dollar and 30 cents in U.S. money, you can trade it for a one pound coin.  If you only have one dollar, then you’ll only get 77 pence.

We gave the harp player a two pound coin because he let my brother and I play his harp! In order to busk in the tube tunnels, you need to be really good and audition for a permit.  See my post where I busk with my violin here.

 

This is a playground that kids need to be supervised on. What I say about this playground is it is risky, fun, pretty high off the ground.  Fortunately, it has a baby area.  It’s surrounded by ivy that has started to change colors for fall.  Roan and I like to pretend we live in a Treehouse and collect ingredients to sell at a market.

 

There is also a stage for putting on performances.  Click here to see my Grimm’s brother style story I made up.

 

We almost rented a let (which is an apartment)  in Shoreditch, London. I am glad we chose our place in Fitzrovia instead.  So we went to the Spitalfield’s Market to check out the neighborhood and see the Upstart Crow Festival showcasing London songwriters.  Roan and I were invited to be a part of a fashion show.  After our runway walk…

 

we spent some time making paper flowers.

 

After the fashion show, I went to see people sing on stage.

The London Eye is a ginormous Ferris Wheel, the biggest you’ve ever seen. You ride in good sized rooms with a group of people. From the top, we saw the River Thames which divides London into the North and South banks, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben’s Tower, and a playground below.

We went to the playground after we rode the giant Ferris Wheel. It was a pretty cool playground like an obstacle course with lots of rope webs to spider around on. The playground is right next to the Shrek tour, the Aquarium, and the London Dungeon. We decided we’ll have to check those out later.

The river walk is full of street performers including musicians and robots. The Robot man is a human in disguise. He looks so realistic with his buttons and armor stuff and wires that stick out, but the most realistic thing about him is when he moves he makes a robot noise. Buzz. Buzz. Vrrr. Eee. We gave him a pound, which is like a coin dollar, so we could take a photo with him.

After playing all day, we went to a Street Food market. I ate Chips there. Chips are french fries, but better. They are thicker and made with fresh potatoes. And what I think of as chips, like potato chips, are called Crisps. I eat a lot of chips, the french fry kind.